On Friday, ESPN's Seth Wickersham published a long-form piece detailing a power struggle inside the Patriots organization between Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. It centered around Brady's personal trainer Alex Guerrero, the process that led to the Jimmy Garoppolo trade, and speculation that this could be Belichick's last year in New England.
Wickersham joined Dale & Holley with Keefe Friday and defended the piece, which he said has been in the works for months.
"I am very cautious with what I print," Wickersham said. "I just don't throw things in there. If I did some of these stories might be a lot more entertaining."
One of the things he said which stood out was inferring some reporters are being hypocritical in their response to the piece. Some have reported some of the things in the piece to be untrue, but according to Wickersham, these same reporters have then reached out to him saying he was actually dead on.
"This isn't a secret. People in Boston know about this. People have written about it. I was trying to add detail and context the best that I could," he said. "Some of these reporters will tweet something that is contradictory to my piece and reporting and send me a direct message saying it's dead on. I don't know why they do that. You guys have been talking about this stuff. Some of these theories have been going on with Garoppolo are not new."
The Patriots released a combined statement with Kraft, Brady and Belichick that said the speculated theories are "unsubstantiated, highly exaggerated, or flat out inaccurate."
"I knew they were going to do it," Wickersham said of the statement. "I think that there is a nervousness. Look, anyone who is close to that team knows how bad things have been in the building this year. Bill Belichick has done a phenomenal job of keeping that building together and people in the building know it. This has been a difficult, difficult year. I don't know if it is the end, nobody knows. Only Bill knows and that guy is not going to reveal anything before he needs to. There is a palpable sense in the building that this could end. That is something that I reported thoroughly and I was very comfortable writing about."
The piece said Belichick and Goodell met in Foxboro last week and are now "good friends." The NFL said no meeting between Goodell and Belichick took place last week, but Wickersham stands by what he reported.
"They definitely met last week," he said. "I had two people who witnessed them meeting. He was in Foxboro and Troy Vincent was there, too. Some of the time they met with Kraft, some of the time they met with Bill. They talked about rule changes and they have become friends."
As for if Belichick leaves after the year, Wickersham said only Belichick knows the real answer.
"That is his decision. I don't know," he said. "He had an idea for how he wanted to leave. We think of him being so competitive that if he were to leave the Patriots we'd think he would want the place to burn down to show how valuable he was when in fact he takes so much pride in what he does that I think he wants them to continue winning when he's gone. I think he had a vision of he wants his sons set up in their football careers and be well established. He wanted to develop Garoppolo and leave the Patriots in good shape at the quarterback position. It was very important to him. Bill Walsh didn't do that when he walked away. Vince Lombardi didn't do that when he walked away. It was very important.
"And I think he wanted the team to continue winning without him. All of this stuff that happened this year shows the limits of the guy who has the most control of anybody in the NFL. It shows that there are even limits to that control."
